International Conference on New Horizons in Education, Lisbon, Portekiz, 12 - 14 Mayıs 2011, ss.915-920
One of the key questions educational researchers investigate involves better understanding of what it
means to be a teacher. Researchers in general education have identified several universal teacher
characteristics that transcend various disciplines. While educational researchers agree that these
characteristics are relatively consistent across different subject matters, there is little agreement regarding
discipline-specific teacher characteristics (Bell, 2005). The present study aims to investigate Turkish EFL
(English as a Foreign Language) pre-service teachers‟ perceptions of the distinctive characteristics of
language teachers. The participants were 85 freshman level and 98 senior level Turkish pre-service
teachers (PTs) of English enrolled in a state university in Istanbul, Turkey. Data were collected by means
of a questionnaire adapted from Lee (2010).